The ready availability and variety of free instant messaging applications for computers in the world today has led to an increase in the use of such applications for communications. As many of these applications support the use of image capturing devices like webcams, video-based communications is also increasing in popularity.
The majority of webcams currently available to the masses are either mounted onto display screens or placed on a platform during use. There are also webcams that are integrated in the display cases of monitors. The aforementioned webcams typically are able to capture images of a person positioned in front of a lens of the webcams. However, there are often issues relating to how the person in front of the lens of the webcam appears to be looking in a direction away from a recipient who is communicating with the person. This is because the eyes of the person in front of the lens of the webcam are typically looking at contents shown on a display screen, and not the lens of the webcam per se. Consequently, communications between the recipient and an initiator may seem rather unnatural, as the recipient does not visually appear to be conversing with the initiator or vice versa when either the recipient or the initiator visually appears to be looking away. This may be disadvantageous to either party as either party in the communications may be perceived to lack social etiquette in relation to maintaining eye contact when conversing to another person. This may cause unnecessary misunderstandings and adversely affect either professional or personal relationships.
In addition, an important aspect of face-to-face communications between people relates to eye contact and how eye contact enables a form of unspoken communication between people. This form of unspoken communication often aids in conveying intentions and thoughts which have not been verbalized. This is another problem in instances when there is no eye-to-eye contact during communications between the recipient and the initiator.
In this regard, even though video-based communications is readily available, many people rather avoid using it as there is no eye-to-eye type of communication using the aforementioned webcams. This is because of the difference of such a communication experience compared to having an actual face-to-face conversation in relation to a perceived lack of eye-to-eye contact.
Thus, it would be desirable if a webcam used for video-based communications is able to facilitate an eye-to-eye type of communication and more effectively replicate an actual face-to-face conversation.